Finishing second is never easy.

Just ask the NIU men’s tennis team, who completed its season with a 4-2 loss to Ball State in the MAC Championship finals match on Saturday at the Anderson Hall courts.

But Huskies coach Steve Rodecap knows that losing is not the end of the world, and life will go on.

“Our guys played hard and fought throughout the season,” Rodecap said. “It’s never easy finishing second.”

Under Rodecap, NIU has seen an improvement of nine wins from his inaugural season as coach in 1999-2000 to this season in which the Huskies went 16-10. The 16 wins were the most by a Huskies squad since they won 18 in the 1996-’97 campaign.

“Being as close as [the championship match] was, it made us realize we’re not too far away,” NIU junior Aaron Forsberg said. “The finish leaves us hungry for next year.”

The success the team experienced this season was no surprise to Rodecap, who was able to coach his first season with all of his own recruits.

“It doesn’t happen overnight,” Rodecap said. “We’ve slowly been improving and getting the right guys on the team. This was the first year with all of my players, and I expected we would be better.”

One of the first players to come to NIU when Rodecap got the job was Raymond vanWasbeek, who transferred to the Huskies as a sophomore from the University of San Diego.

VanWasbeek is the only player the Huskies will lose next year, as he finished up his career at NIU with a 24-7 record his senior year at No. 1 singles and another All-MAC first-team selection as announced on Tuesday. The honor was his third straight in his three years at NIU.

“Ray meant a lot to this program,” Rodecap said. “He was the guy I built the team around when he came to NIU. You can never replace a guy like him, you can only hope that the guys still on the team can step it up next season. We’ve got a lot of great players that are returning.”

VanWasbeek also won the Jack Vredevelt Sportsmanship Award, announced Tuesday.

It’s going to be a little bit different without Ray,” said Forsberg, vanWasbeek’s doubles partner. “Ray is definitely going to leave a void in our lineup

VanWasbeek was the only Huskie named to the first team, while three others were second team selections.

Erick Martinez, Juan Pablo-Barriga and Willy Gali, all sophomores, will return next season as All-MAC second teamers for the Huskies.

“We’ve got a lot of guys who played well this season,” Rodecap said. “Martinez is developing. He was a whole level ahead of last season, which is encouraging.”